I think stay-at-home dads get a bad rap in the media.We’re portrayed as forgetful, distracted, emotionally stunted parental blobs who never get it right.

And yet somehow – I loved my time as a stay-at-home dad, it literally changed my life, and I met a lot of other dads during that time that proved to me that the media portrayal is just not justified.Sara Denny-Roth of Kiehl’s and I always agreed that this special dopp kit project was a celebration of dads and their interaction with their children. In my experience, some of the smallest but most special moments that dads have with their kids is while playing at the park; so, we gathered several dads we knew and invited them to a playdate. We used the same park in the West Village that I always take my kids to – and actually, this is the place that I really learned photography whileas I shot my kids just being kids. Our only stipulation was to forget about me shooting and just focus on having fun.

Below are some of the shots from that day. I hope in these images you see the tenderness, warmth and genuine love that I felt between these families that day.Becoming a father and the daily gift/challenge of that role is nourishment to my life. I want to thank Kiehl’s for helping me promote and celebrate that joy with an even larger audience.

Kiehl’s and I had been wanting to work together for a while, but could not figure out the right format; then, they commissioned me to createa dopp kit for their upcoming Father’s Day promotions and it fell right into place.

I loved the challenge of designing a product from scratch and they were keen to let me have it produced in Italy by my good friend, Luca Roda. The deal was cemented when Kiehl’s agreed to promote the project with a shoot celebrating the special relationship a Dad has with his kids (you’ll see some of those images in a post tomorrow).

During the project I took a few photos at critical moments in the design process. The photo above is literally the moment I got the inspiration for how I wanted the dopp kit to look. (It pays to always have a camera with you!)

I was also happy to see Andrew Hetherington’s blog What’s the Jackanory? also on the list. I’ve known Andy for years; he took the above photo of me way back in 1997. (Yes, I had very long locks back then.) I watched Andy struggle for years to find and refine a visual vocabulary, and then face the challenges of finding people to listen to that voice. It’s great to see that he stuck to his guns and is receiving the respect he worked so hard to achive.

It takes a few trips to an emerging design city like Madrid to start understanding what makes it uniquely beautiful. I think I’m starting to get the groove of Madrid. It’s turning out to be a great city for menswear. Just One, Man, and Patch are all shops I want to explore and report on in the near future.